30 Teams in 30 Days: Charlotte Hornets
The NBA season is just thirty days away, on every single day I will drop a preview for each team with a prediction on how their season is going to go.
Offseason Report:
Signings: Cody Martin (Rookie), Caleb Martin (Rookie), PJ Washington (Rookie), Terry Rozier (3/57)
Departures: Kemba Walker (Traded to Boston), Tony Parker (Retired)
The Charlotte Hornets had an off-season where the team has been reset to ground zero. The Mitch Kupchak led front office failed to resign Kemba Walker after they tabled an insulting offer. The Hornets offered Kemba a deal which $60m below the maximum which Walker could have received in free agency. Walker had previously expressed a willingness to be flexible on his contract but it seemed highly unlikely that the Hornets would low-ball their cornerstone in such a manner. Walker expressed a willingness to take a deal worth $190m, some $30m less than the maximum that he could earn and the Hornets offered $160m over five years. It is a frankly insulting offer to a player who was an All-NBA talent who was dedicated to getting the Hornets back into the post-season for the first time since Steve Clifford’s first year with the team. The result of this was a puzzling trade involving the Celtics.
Walker did not want to leave the Hornets holding the bad in free agency, he has previously expressed his love for Charlotte Hornets and wanted to make sure that the team could receive an asset out of his departure. The Hornets’ front office were also interested in the Celtics’ reserve point guard, Terry Rozier as a potential replacement for Walker. A deal was struck between the Celtics and Hornets with Rozier going to Charlotte on a deal worth $57m over three years while Walker went in the opposite direction with a deal worth $141m over four years. For Walker, it means that he has finally signed the huge contract which his play is worth. Over the last two years, Walker produced All-Star level production for rotation player money. For Boston and Brad Stevens, he is finally being paid what he is worth.
The Rozier contract is questionable and does not make sense unless Terry Rozier takes a huge leap. Rozier regressed badly from the ‘Scary Terry’ of two post-seasons ago. For the large majority of the season, Rozier was an inefficient shoot-first point guard who contributed little except for scoring. His defence was average and he did not display an ability to create a shot for anybody except himself with any real consistency. It is entirely possible that Rozier improves outside of a crowded guard rotation and in a role where he has more freedom to run an offence but the number do not project any vast improvement.
Rozier’s true shooting is just 50.1% which ranked 178th out of 263 guards who played minutes in the NBA last year. This is outstandingly low for a player with an 18.2% usage rate and is primarily a shoot-first guard. The on and off numbers are not kind to Rozier either, BasketballReference states that his on-off rating over 100 possessions is -9.5. This percentage indicates that Rozier was a detriment to his team over 100 possessions and there are better options when it comes to producing positive production. It must be noted that TS% is not everything, TS% would suggest that Russell Westbrook is literally the most inefficient player of all time but it does not account for Westbrook’s outstanding passing and impressive AST:TO.
I struggle to see how Rozier is an upgrade over Kemba Walker or has greater upside which can be used as a building block in the future. The contract given to Rozier is also hefty and there are better point guards which could be acquired for $19m per year. Patrick Beverley or Derrick Rose could have been acquired for cheaper and are better players that Terry Rozier. There is a possibility that this contract becomes a bad contract for the Hornets in the future and a pick may have to be attached so that Rozier can be moved on.
The positives for the Hornets are hard to find as they enter a rebuild without any real exciting prospects. PJ Washington was a solid pick but he does not have All-Star upside. The only real positive is that $45m of bad contracts will come off the books at the end of the season. The Hornets have the possibility to use these bad contracts to acquire lengthier bad contracts and other assets preferably draft picks. The Hornets need to pursue the strategy pioneered by the 76ers and Nets, the cap space needs to be mortgaged while the young guys are developed as much as possible. The greater number of draft picks increases the possibility that a gem is found and a team can be built around cost-controlled contracts.
It is possible that the Hornets can talk themselves into being a free agent destination next year but that will only lead to another spree of bad contracts which set the rebuild back again. The Hornets will not be a free agency destination until they can prove that the management is competent and the team has players that stars want to play with. I have respect for Mitch Kupchak’s refusal to tamper but it also shoots the Hornets in the foot time and time again. The waiting until the moratorium period began meant that all of the splashy acquisitions were off the table and the Hornets had to pick among the scraps left behind.
The Hornets have another painful rebuild ahead of them where the team will lose a lot of games. Charlotte could improve the pace of the rebuild by adding more young players and accumulating draft picks. Players like Malik Monk, PJ Washington and the Martin twins need to get as much playing time as possible.
